Democracy Now! Blog

Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, a pivotal moment in the 1960s struggle for equality. It took 41 years before a murder conviction was handed down in the case, with former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen found guilty of manslaughter in 2005.

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
There were 8,920,000 military veterans in the United States as of last June, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sometime last Sunday or Monday, hours before Veterans Day began, that number dropped by one, when Tomas Young died at home in Seattle, with his wife by his side. He was one of many soldiers who were sent to Iraq and were grievously injured there.

Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Abdullah Elshamy has been ordered released from jail in Egypt after a nearly five-month hunger strike in protest of his detention without charge. Last week, we spoke to his brother Mohammed.

The romantic comedy "Obvious Child" was one of the most talked-about films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah. It is opening in theaters today. "Obvious Child" has been hailed as the first romantic comedy about abortion, but it is much more than that. Watch our interview with "Obvious Child" director Gillian Robespierre.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from James Risen of The New York Times, who faces prison for protecting the identity of his confidential source. Watch our interview with Eric Lichtblau, who won a Pulitzer Prize with Risen for their reporting on the NSA despite White House pressure to kill the story.

Civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama has died at the age of 93. In this interview, we learn how her activism began when she and her family were held in a Japanese-American internment camp. She also recalls how she cradled Malcolm X’s head after he was gunned down in the Audubon Ballroom.

As Obama delays immigration reform action, Aviva Chomsky joined us Friday to discuss how "illegality" and "undocumentedness" are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. Read an excerpt from her new book.

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, the nation’s former top counterterrorism official has said he believes President George W. Bush and other members of his administration committed war crimes around the Iraq war. Richard Clarke served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism during President Bush’s first year in office.

Listen to an interview with journalist William Worthy, a World War II conscientious objector and defiant international correspondent who traveled to Cuba, China and Iran, faced federal prosecution, and was the subject of a Phil Ochs song.

Use this new video timeline to see all of our coverage of whistleblower Edward Snowden and his exposure of the NSA’s massive surveillance state, featuring extensive interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Glenn Greenwald.

Watch part 2 of our conversation with the renowned American actor, film director and political activist Danny Glover, and Kathleen Cleaver, professor at Emory Law School, who is featured in the film, "The Black Power Mixtape."

Extended web-only interview with The Yes Men and indigenous activist Gitz Crazyboy. Earlier this week, members of the group spoke at the Homeland Security Congress posing as U.S. government officials. At the conference, they announced a fictitious new U.S. government plan called "American Renewable Clean-Energy Network" to convert the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. After the announcement, The Yes Men and indigenous activists led the audience in a large circle dance to celebrate the fictitious plan.

Read part of "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap," by Matt Taibbi, who joined us to examine one of the "greatest challenges we face in contemporary American life: surviving a system that devours the lives of the poor, turns a blind eye to the destructive crimes of the wealthy, and implicates us all."

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan There is a database with your name in it ... that is, if you live in one of the 28 states participating in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. It’s one of the components of an aggressive drive across the U.S. by Republicans to stop many Americans from voting.

DN! In Depth

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — The corporate television newscasts spend more and more time covering the increasingly disruptive, costly and at times deadly weather. But they consistently fail to make the link between extreme weather and climate change.